Archive for August, 2009

No-Knead Dough for You’ll-See-What

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

I almost forgot, you’re going to need this for our journey to the dark side.

rising bread dough

I’ve become a reluctant devotee of the no-knead method.  Of course it’s a lot less work, but the thing is, I have to work even harder to resist the urge to knead the dough.  I like the way it feels, squeezing the air out, knuckling the dough till I’m grazing the wood beneath it, stretching the proteins and delivering a resounding thwack now and then. I’ll always struggle to sit still for traditional meditation, but the rhythmic kneading transports me.  In that space, I understand things. Things about how slow-rise and the universe at large conduct themselves.

But I’m going to have to get my oneness elsewhere because no-knead truly turns out a superior loaf of bread.

(In case you’re interested, it turns out that cheese is not too different. Some of you know I’ve been dabbling in homemade mozzarella and ricotta. My last batch of mozzarella came out chewy and tough. We melted it on pizza – no loss there – but I’m not going to all that trouble for pizza cheese.  Later I talked with Simon the Cheese Guy (the other cheese guy named Simon, the one I don’t live with) at the Wine Merchant. Immeasurably wise and generous with the words, Simon explained that the proteins get tough if they’re overhandled, which sounded awfully familiar. If any of you are making cheese though, know this: unlike bread dough, cheese-in-the-making that’s left alone in its whey for a few days will soften up again).

bread dough balls

But back to the task at hand.  Do this, and then after the first rise, zip it up in a plastic bag and store it in the fridge. Gently deflate it every day or two – but it’s not going to be there that long. At any rate, it will straddle the fence this-side of pleasantly sour for about a week, and then, ready or not, you’ll have to use it up.

flour in bowl

No-Knead Bread Dough for You’ll-See-What
2 cups white or bread flour
1 tablespoon semolina or whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons fine sea salt
1 ¼ cups cool water (68 degrees if you’re measuring; otherwise cold tap is fine)
1 ¼  teaspoons instant yeast
1 tablespoon olive oil

In a bowl, combine the flours, the sugar and the salt and stir to distribute evenly. I find that it’s useful to employ a whisk at this point to thoroughly combine ingredients without packing them down too much.

Place one cup of the water in another bowl and sprinkle with the yeast. Allow to sit for one minute only, then stir well. Immediately stir in the olive oil and then pour this mixture into the dry ingredients. Stir with a large wooden spoon, then, using hands, gather the ingredients and mix till a dough has formed. The dough should be wet and sticky while holding its shape – if it’s too dry, add a bit of the reserved water until the right consistency is achieved. Go ahead, gently work the dough, pushing and pulling the dough to stretch and fold it. You know you want to. But after one minute, and not a second more, you’re going to have to stop.

Let the dough rest in the bowl for a minute, then lightly oil the surface and cover it with plastic wrap or a thick towel. Allow it to sit at room temperature for an hour and a half, then gently squeeze out the air, flattening the mass again. Place in an airtight container or plastic bag and store in the refrigerator.

bread dough in bowl

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Food as Feat of Backward Engineering: Curiously Sweet and Spicy Mustard

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

dripping mustard

Next post, I’m going to surrender every shred of foodie cred I’ve earned.   I’m going down in style and you’re coming with me. This week, then, let’s gather our supplies.  Follow these instructions, and you’ll be set for the apocalypse.

First, we make the mustard.

Some people plan their vacations around spectacular destinations in the natural world, or decadent spa getaways where the week becomes one endless sauna, skin renewing massage and herbal spritzer. Then there’s The Smithsonian, 42nd Street, Tate Modern. Other culturally curious spots are the Salem Witch Trial Memorial, the Glass Bottle Houses, the Tower of Baa, the house-sized representation of the shoe that old lady lived in, and the field of Plexiglas cows lowing halfway between St. Louis and Milwaukee.

But Simon and me? We travel for farms and fondue.  And we brake for mustard museums.

spicy mustard on spoon

This mustard recipe is a home reverse-construction of a wonderfully sweet and spicy mustard that we picked up two years ago when we came to a screeching halt before the Mt. Horeb Mustard Museum. The original mustard was made by a small company called Slimme and Nunne’s, and the mustard varietal, Sweet and Nicely Spicy, is striking stuff.  In fact, though we’d tried a lot of mustard (the shop  would let you sample your way through all 300+ varieties of mustard if you had the time and the stomach for it) we were so stricken that we bought four jars of it.  We wept when we opened the last jar  sometime around Christmas, and this July we took the very long way home from Iowa just so we could pass through Mt. Horeb and stock up on enough to get us through the winter.

Scapes are one thing, but it’s not practical to drive 350 miles for mustard, and I resolved to figure out a passable formula before we polished off the spoils of this last trip. And with this recipe I’ve come pretty darn close. The secret seems to be that it’s more nectar (or, in the store-bought version, corn syrup) than mustard.

spicy mustard cracker

Here’s a quick note on mustard’s health properties (oh, you were waiting for it, weren’t you?) Mustard is a Brassica, and part of the cruciferous family of plants, which means that eating your mustard is almost as good as eating your broccoli. As such, mustard seeds (which is what mustard powder is made of, which is what mustard paste is begot from) contain lots of phytonutrients. I won’t go into which ones, but if you’re interested you can look here. Even if you can’t pronounce them, you’ll still get the benefits of said phytonutrients, and the ones in mustard (and broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, etc) have been studied for their ability to thwart cancer – both actively and preventatively.

Now, make your mustard!

more mustard shots

The Home Version of Sweet and Curiously Spicy Mustard
1/2 cup dry mustard powder
¼ cup + 2 tablespoons water
¾ cup agave nectar*
½  cup + 2 tablespoons honey*
1/2 cup cider vinegar
pinch of  allspice (maybe 1/8 teaspoon, not much)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
¼  – ½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (I used a combo of Ancho and Aleppo, but I always do)
Two shakes of hot sauce
2 tablespoons cornstarch or tapioca starch
2 tablespoons cold water

* You can use a combination of honey and agave nectar, or you could also probably use one or the other. I use both because the nectar is sweeter and thinner, while the honey adds a consistency that pulls the other ingredietns together.  Also, the scent of the honey holds up against the other, harsher smells, and that changes the palate experience.

mustard in stainless

In a small bowl combine mustard powder and the water and whisk vigorously until well combined and smooth.  Let sit for about 15 minutes. Then, with a spatula scrape the mustard into a small nonreactive saucepan and add the agave nectar and honey. Stir well, then turn heat on medium low and warm slightly. Add the vinegar, allspice, red pepper, black pepper, salt and hot sauce. Stir well and bring to a simmer. Allow to simmer on stove for about 5 minutes, stirring often.

Combine the starch and the cold water in a small bowl and stir until it’s a paste. Add about half of this to the mustard mix on the stove, stir well, and let simmer lightly for a few minutes. It will thicken quickly, and at this point you can judge if you’d like to add more of the starch mixture or leave it as is. Allow it to cool, and place the mustard in jars (this will yield about 9 ounces – a decent sized jar plus some.

If you make a lot of it you could water boil it to seal the jars, but it’s so easy to make that it’s not necessary. Opened jars keep, refrigerated, for about 2 months.

If you make this, I really, really want to know: were Simon and I crazy to drive hazy,  humid, farmland roads to snag a few more jars of this stuff? Or is it as good as it is in our vivid, food-obsessed minds?  What idiosyncratic uses for mustard have you got, and how will you use this one?

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Food as Happiness

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Bhutanese Red Rice with Quinoa, Black Beluga Lentils, Harissa and Mint (trust me)

red rice beluga salad header 2

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth,
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry

Mark Strand, “Eating Poetry” (1968)

While I was outside shooting up-close photos of my dinner (to the undiminished bemusement of my neighbors, even after all this time), the cat ran off with my cheese. Those who say that animals don’t feel emotions have never seen a cat that has just made off with the lion’s share of the camembert. It was happiness all right, pure and simple.  Followed by just enough self-awareness and subsequent guilt (when I came stomping into the room) to keep him alive.

grendel w cheese

grendel caught

It’s okay though, because before he did that I was having trouble writing about happiness, and yet I must. There doesn’t seem to be any way to write about Bhutan without writing about happiness. And there’s no way to write about Bhutanese red rice without paying homage to the place that it comes from.

Bhutan is a nation of the incredibly poor yet paradoxically and uncommonly  rich. Located in South Asia and bordered by the Himalayas, it has been one of the most isolated nations in the world. Until 1999, there was a national ban on television, the Internet and cell phones (I think I want to live there).  In the last 10 years Bhutan has acquired some mod cons, but somehow these have not come at the expense of its Gross National Happiness. In 1972 Bhutan’s former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck declared that Gross National Happiness was Bhutan’s national guiding philosophy, granting it precedence over Gross National Product. This was a part of his commitment to build an economy fitted to Bhutan’s unique culture and based upon its spiritual and humanistic values.

red bhutanese rice

And the result has been a nation that has slowly modernized while still preserving its culture, traditions, identity and natural environment.   In a 2005 survey, 45% of Bhutanese reported being very happy, 52% reported being happy and just 3% said they were not happy. This places Bhutan’s happiness level within the top 10% of nations worldwide. But don’t just ask them. In 2006, Business Week magazine rated Bhutan the happiest country in Asia and the eighth-happiest in the world.

I was having trouble writing about happinesss because happiness seemed just too big.  I was taking my happiness way too seriously. Then the cat reminded me:  happiness is in the smallest things, the moments that bloom and fade around us all day long. I suspect that this is the sort of happiness that Bhutan has put a premium on.

And here’s the truth: for a moment, when I saw Grendel licking the parchment that had once held the precious cheese, my regret slipped away and I felt it too. Happiness is contagious.

It’s also good for you. The BBC just published a study that finds that happy people live longer.  Though they called it “optimism”, the state that the article describes is more akin to happiness. It’s possible, after all, to be optimistic while harboring hostile thoughts.  But the article describes that warm, grounding, moment to moment sense of connectedness to the present, that flash when self-consciousness fades and we open to receive the energy around us.  You know,  happiness.

red rice black beluga lentils

Happiness is what you feel when. When you take a single bite of tangy, unbelievably decadent Nettle Meadow’s Kunik goat cheese, smeared liberally onto a wedge of homemade crusty bread. No, it really, really is.  Big happiness.  Or when you come inside after mowing the lawn on a staggeringly humid afternoon and bite into a chilled Sungold cherry tomato, snatched hours earlier from your garden.  Or when you laugh louder than you know you should, or catch the expression in your young niece’s face when you do.  Or better yet, when she doesn’t know anyone is looking. It’s also the look in your fiance’s face when he’s wrestling with a bit of code and has forgotten you’re in the room.  It’s the way your muscles are just a step behind your intentions a half hour after a really satisfying workout. It’s taking far more photos than you need to, and sharing all of them, simply because you love the world as it’s magnified and reflected through the lens. It’s a single, perfect line of poetry. It’s finding out what brings happiness to the people that make you happy.

red quinoa

black lentils

So do something a little bit bad just to know you’re alive. Eat something so spicy it makes you flush like you’ve gotten away with something. Let your child dig into the cake before it cools, give him extra icing. Laugh louder than you know you should, and  for goodness sake, run off with the cheese.

red rice salad header

The Recipe:

This may look suspiciously like a previous recipe, but it’s nations apart.  It’s true that these days black beluga lentils are making me quite happy, and in the lazy heat of August, so do easy-peasy recipes. But this one has mint, harissa, tomatoes, oh, and Bhutanese red rice and red quinoa.

The harissa adds that je ne sais qua, a burst of warm, smoky flavor that transforms the dish from something familiar to something exotic and wondrous. If you make the harissa yourself, be sure to use a generous amount of smoked chiles in the mix – it adds a three-fold complexity to your dish. The mint pairs beautifully with the harissa and the citrus flavors. So many distinct tastes present themselves here, melding seamlessly into a lively, chewy, meaty, satiating meal.

harissa on spoon

Bhutanese red rice is not a bean, you’re right, but it is an heirloom. Grown at 8,000 feet in the Himalayas, it has a flavor that is both grassy and almond-like, meaty and earthy with a chewy texture.  It’s rich enough to stand up to big flavors, and the insistent texture makes it a solid meal base. Nutritionally, it has the same vitamins and minerals as brown rice but cooks in half the time.  I find it at Whole Foods and at international grocery stores, but it can also be ordered online.

I also tossed in a bit of red quinoa. The color made me laugh, what can I say? I also love the way that quinoa takes on the appearance of tiny crinoids after it’s cooked. It’ s very nutty and a touch fluffy and with the rice and lentils it forms a complete amino acid chain (in other words, you don’t need meat to get all your protein).

red rice red quinoa

I don’t know what Lucy will advise, but in the name of happiness, for God’s sake, pair this with an extra-dry (not Brut or sec) champagne. Open a bottle just for you, and don’t feel bad about throwing out what you can’t drink in one sitting. Or do what I’ll do – use the rest to make champagne mustard.

Bhutanese Red Rice with Quinoa, Black Beluga Lentils, Harissa and Mint
1 cup cooked black beluga lentils (brown lentils will do too)
2 cups cooked Bhutanese red rice
I cup cooked Incan red quinoa
1 medium cucumber, chopped into small pieces
2 small slicing tomatoes or a generous handful of cherry tomatoes, diced
juice of one lemon, maybe a bit more depending on taste
1 ½ tablespoons olive oil, maybe a bit less depending on taste
1 generous handful of fresh parsley, minced
3 tablespoons fresh mint, minced (peppermint, spearmint, citrus mint all work nicely)
a tablespoon of harissa
1/2 cup good, creamy goat cheese, crumbled
Freshly ground pepper

Combine cooked rice and lentils in a large bowl. Stir in chopped cucumber and tomatoes, then squeeze in the lemon juice and add olive oil. Stir to combine, then add chopped parsley and mint and toss again. Stir in crumbled cheese, then add black pepper to taste. Garnish with hairssa – but be sure to stir it in before chomping down!

red rice salad in sun

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